Environmental Health and Safety

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With extreme cold spreading across a large section of the U.S., the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is reminding workers whose job requires them to work outdoors in cold, wet, icy, or snowy conditions to “be prepared and be aware” to prevent cold-related illnesses and injuries such as hypothermia and frostbite.

In its continued effort to help companies comply with government regulations, J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc. is hosting nearly 30 complimentary seminars in the first quarter of 2019 alone. “What’s great about these seminars is not only that our subject-matter experts provide attendees with in-person guidance to better understand and comply with complex regulatory requirements, but also that attendees get to hear about real life best practices from their peers,” said Tom Reader, senior director of marketing at J. J. Keller.

Choosing the right final project for a graduate level course can be a daunting responsibility for any instructor. Harvard Research Scientist and Instructor Dr. Diana Ceballos heard NIOSH researcher Dr. Thais Morata share details at a NORA conference about NIOSH’s collaboration with academia and Wikipedia to teach students science translation and knew it was a perfect match.

A Michigan State University study is the first to show an association between unusually high pesticide exposure and poor sense of smell among aging farmers. The research examined more than 11,200 farmers over a 20-year period. At the start of the study, about 16 percent of participants reported having experienced a high pesticide exposure event, or HPEE, such as a large amount of pesticide spilling on their body.

OSHA has posted new frequently asked questions (FAQs) on the agency's standard for respirable crystalline silica in general industry. The agency says it developed the FAQs in consultation with industry and union stakeholders to provide guidance to employers and employees on the standard's requirements, such as exposure assessments, regulated areas, methods of compliance, and communicating silica hazards to employees.

The American Industrial Hygiene Association is pleased to support the Society for Chemical Hazard Communication's professional development training, HazCom Registry Preparation, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The course, designed for hazard communication professionals preparing to sit for the Safety Data Sheets & Label Authoring Registry competency assessment, will be presented on March 16-17 by Robert Skoglund, Ph.D., DABT, CIH; Denese A. Deeds, CIH, FAIHA, SDSRP; Douglas Eisner, M.S.; Chandra D. Gioiello, M.S., CIH; and Robert Roy, Ph.D., DABT.

Female nurses who administer antineoplastic drugs – medications used to treat cancer – don’t always wear protective clothing, according to a new NIOSH study published online in the American Journal of Nursing, accompanied by a video abstract. This is one of the first studies to explore the use of antineoplastic drugs and personal protective equipment among non-pregnant and pregnant female nurses.

The National Safety Council has posted an online version of the Injury Facts reference book for safety statistics. The free resource features a section on workplace safety that includes work-related injury and fatality trends, and how to benchmark an organization's injury and illness incidence rates with national averages.

The increasingly competitive marketplace of products related to occupational safety and health offers up a continuing cornucopia of goods and services, emerging technology and ways to address emerging risks. How do you make your company’s products stand out from the rest of the pack?

A World Health Organization (WHO) report, published late last year, highlighted the latest scientific evidence linking exposure to air pollution to adverse health effects in children. It wrote that although air pollution is widely recognized as a major health threat causing about 7 million premature deaths worldwide each year, the critical aspect that it is affecting children in uniquely damaging ways is often overlooked.